Letting go

As I'm writing this post, at 12 am on Sunday night, little Ruby has probably already been to court and is back at Gladney, maybe taking a nap or having lunch.  Whatever is going to happen over there has happened, without us.  Of course, I'm hoping everything went well and we will be getting a call in the morning telling us that we are officially parents, but I'm also prepared for a call telling us that there was a weather delay, or the judge was sick, or they want an extra stamp on some random document before they can process the adoption.  And I will have to accept that news too, and go on waiting, and be patient.

For a person with control issues like myself, international adoption has been a rough process.  I have had the illusion of control in so many aspects of my life, especially with my children, that it is hard to completely let go of all of that.  A few weeks ago, a wonderful family who was going over to Ethiopia to pick up their little son offered to take a small package over to give to Ruby for us.  I knew I wanted to include some pictures of us and the kids in one of those plastic photo albums that can be chewed on, along with some clothes and a teething ring, so I went to Target to get the photo album.  Standing in the aisle of baby products - pacifiers, teething rings, bottle warmers, baby spoons, I was immediately transported back a few years to when Finn and Gus were little babies and I was picking that stuff up for them at Target.  And, as I used to do when they were little, I became paralyzed with indecision in the aisle choosing among the various little items.  On the one hand, I don't like her to be in pain with teething, but on the other, is it good for a baby to chew on plastic?  On the one hand, the little Robeez are cute, but now that she is starting to walk, does she need a hard shoe?  Why do all the sippy cups have characters from TV shows that are really not age-appropriate for a child who still needs a sippy cup?  It is such a funny thing about motherhood that we spend so much time - maybe the majority of our days when kids are very little - making decisions or doing things that, in the big picture, you could look at and say, "who the *&^% cares?  it's just a sippy cup."  And standing in that aisle, there is certainly a voice in my head saying just that.  But on the other hand, being a mother to a little baby is just one big series of little, individually insignificant things that add up to the sum of a baby's (and a mother's) life.  Maybe every moment and every little decision are like bricks in a wall - they don't have to all be perfect, and if you are missing one here and there, your wall will be okay, but if you get sloppy or you leave out too many, the wall could fall.  (I did admit that I have control issues earlier, in case you are rolling your eyes at this point.)

Anyway, back at Target with all this going through my head, I had a moment of such sadness that I am not able to be that OCD mother for Ruby that I was for Finn and Gus.  For all I know, she's teething on a lead pipe and drinking Coke out of a bottle (obviously, I know she is not doing those things at Gladney, but you know what I mean).  So why was I still standing there, spending 20 minutes comparing the various qualities of teething products?  (In the end, I chose a flat cloth elephant with rubber feet and a squeaky nose, by the way.)  I really don't know, except that maybe this is the adoption equivalent of avoiding unpasteurized cheese and sushi when you are pregnant.  Or maybe it really does matter because is one of those things you do because you love someone and you are their mother, even if you can't hold them because they are growing arms and legs inside your stomach or they are half a world away and have no idea you even exist.

The reality is, she'll be fine in spite of all of the things she didn't have, and all of the non-organic, unsterilized, plastic, lead-paint, who knows what she was exposed to.  And I will be the happiest person in the world to find that all of that didn't matter at all.  But, I know that the minute I get my hands on her, I will be making up for lost time.